On Monday, I was called an antisemitic whore. Yesterday, I was told twice to go f*** myself. It’s turning into an eventful week, and I can’t wait to see what today brings.

I’ve written before about trying to apply Sanchin-Ryu (karate) to other areas of my life, particularly my writing. Some of my interactions this month have gotten me thinking about how those principles of self-defense might apply online.

Take yesterday as an example. Over on Twitter, I posted, “Dear white folks trying to defend, justify, or minimize the shooting of an unarmed black kid. Please just shut the hell up already.”

I knew perfectly well that this will piss some people off. (I’m amazed I haven’t yet been accused of censoring or hating free speech.) “Please shut the hell up” is an aggressive statement, and given the public nature of the internet and the number of people following me online, I know some will get angry and tell me to go f*** myself. The question is what I do next.

Walk away. It is really hard to walk away from someone being wrong on the internet. It’s hard to recognize that I have a choice about whether to give someone my time and energy. I’ve only got so much; why should I spend it on this clown?

There’s a part of me that wants to DEFEAT ALL THE OPPONENTS, but that’s just ego:

“Hines, you’re nothing but a punk, and I should kick your ass!”

“Avast, random internet person! You smell like goblin farts, and I shall pwn you like Éowyn pwned the Witch-king of Angmar!”[1. Yeah, I really need to work on my trash talk. But at least I'm using pwned correctly!]

What’s the point? Is my ego so insecure that I can’t tolerate one person hating on me? If so, I probably ought to get out of the writing biz. Or am I worried my readers will see this person’s Frothing Tweets of Hines-Hate and say, “By the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s meaty balls, he’s right! Jim C. Hines is a punk with a highly kickable ass! I bite my thumbs at him, and shall never read his books again!”

If the only reason to engage is to soothe my injured ego, then I need to walk away. If I have so little faith in my friends and readers, then that’s my problem, one I have to work on.

But sometimes walking away doesn’t work. Sometimes people bring the fight to you, whether it’s a bully who follows you after school or a troll who comes to your site to attack you and others.

Everything begins with stance and breathing. If someone hits me, I can’t strike back effectively until I regain my balance. If I try, I’m going to end up flailing around like a Muppet gone wild.

In a real fight, I’ll have little time to take a breath, settle into a stance, and take control of the situation. I train so that this will become automatic. Online, I usually have more time to regain my balance. The trick — the thing I always struggle with — is remembering to take that time, to just breathe and get past the initial HULK SMASH adrenaline rush.

Don’t react. Act. Monday night, I was working with a sensei who talked about controlling the pace of a fight by deliberately slowing your strikes. The opponent will follow suit to match your speed, and you can start to speed the other person up or slow them down with your own actions.

If I swear and yell and go ALL-CAPS on someone just because that’s how they wrote to me, then they’re controlling the interaction. The hell with that. If I choose to respond in kind, that’s one thing. But I’ve also had success online by responding in different ways, at which point the other person changes their replies to match mine. Suddenly I’m controlling the interaction and determining how things will go.

It’s hard. When someone punches me, I want to punch back twice as hard. But I think back to another sensei describing an interaction where the other person threw the first punch. The sensei howled, “I think you broke my ribs!” and hobbled away, hamming up his injury for the whole crowd.

He was fine. He knew how to take a punch. He could have broken his opponent into bite-sized snacks. But he didn’t have to. Instead, he took his opponent’s mental balance and ended the fight just like that.

#

Confronting is not the same as fighting. Speaking out is a form of confrontation, and I think it’s important. And sometimes, confrontation does lead to fighting. But if that happens, I want it to be my choice, and I want to make that choice for (in my opinion) the right reasons.

If someone is abusive to me or others on my blog, I’ll step in to end that behavior. If a stranger talks crap at or about me on Twitter, I need to recognize that they’re probably not worth my time or energy.

These are all things I’m struggling with, and posting these ideas doesn’t mean I’ve learned to live them yet.

36 Comments

ShannonMar 28, 2012 @ 09:57:15

Someone is wrong on the internet, indeed. I’ve always loved that particular cartoon. I should probably tape it to my monitor. I was googling something a few months ago and stumbled into a forum on high-end watches, which is not a subject that has any emotional impact on me (normally). Several people on the thread had put on their hobnailed boots and were jumping on someone else in response to a comment that was actually correct and politely phrased. I got so upset that I nearly joined the forum just to point out that the original comment was right. I didn’t, but the whole thing stuck in my mind. Even remembering it gets my heart pounding, it was just so nasty.

It also makes me laugh at myself, which isn’t all bad. I find that looking for the humor in a situation can often diffuse it for me. Of course, some situations are just not that funny. And sometimes it makes me laugh at inappropriate moments, which can start a totally different argument.

The story you describe is one of the reasons I’m a strong believer in moderating comments on websites. It just gets too ugly and nasty when there are no rules, and anything goes.

Humor is a great tool to use, if you can do it. I try, but sometimes it’s hard to get past the anger to find the humor.

SkennedyMar 28, 2012 @ 10:10:19

I particularly like the concept of “act, don’t react”. Confrontation is, I think, about putting someone else in the position you want, whether it is mental or physical, and whether you are leading them there, or convincing them to lead themselves. And though I’ve never taken a martial art, I gather that some of your training is designed to leave someone no room but to move in a way that is to your advantage.

So not only is someone on twitter trash-talking you not worth your time and energy, but they are acting in order to bring about a reaction from you. Which is not, I think, in your best interest.

KathrynMar 28, 2012 @ 10:18:21

I saw that exchange you referred to on FB the other day; all I can say Jim is that you handled it as best you could. That person was w-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-y out of line.

What I think is important is that you recognise when you’re being taken for a ride, and how you deal with it. Whilst one would love to think that reasoned arguments, simple points and so forth will bring you victory and your opponent’s head on a spike, that’s never going to happen unless you’re in a particularly reasonable community (of which there are very few). You can’t reason with a lot of those who are argumentative on the interwebs. They’ll either ignore you or deliberately twist what you’re saying into something else.

I was involved in a debate not too long ago on a comics forum, and there was a discussion about LGBT issues, and free speech and stuff came up. I’m in the UK, this person was in the US. No matter how many times I pointed out the difference and so on, they kept turning it back to “well, in the US…” despite the topic being about something happening in the UK. That dragged the argument out because they were constantly twisting it to make themselves look better and to make us look bad.

The best advice will always be to cut your losses and walk away. You can do that on the ‘net, easily. Shut down, close the page, go for a shower, find something to do. Sometimes you’ll be fuming and just get lured back, but try and fight it. If you can’t, try and keep the discussion narrow, focused and on track. If they try and bring other things into it, point out why they’re irrelevant to the discussion, or turn the points back. If you have to fight, logic and reason are the two best tools you will have.

But don’t fight. It’s just never worth it.

ChrisMar 28, 2012 @ 10:34:45

It’s probably worth while trying to figure out if the people taking shots have a valid point, somewhere in all the name calling and rhetoric. Please don’t think that I agree with Zimmerman’s actions or the inaction of the Florida authorities. The whole situation is terrible.

I understand where you’re coming from but to be honest, your original statement comes across as very racist. Somehow the validity of my opinion is based on the color of my skin… that’s not cool.

“Somehow the validity of my opinion is based on the color of my skin…”

I’m pretty sure that’s not what I said. The target of my comment was all of the white people I’ve seen explaining why it was okay or justified to pursue and shoot an unarmed kit. Is specifying that I’m addressing white people a racist act, in your worldview?

ChrisMar 28, 2012 @ 10:55:45

Somewhat. Why not just specify people with a specific view and leave the skin color out? I guarantee there are people of all skin colors who have an opinion that you disagree with but you specified only the white ones in your message.

White and black communities are not some kind of monolithic group, they are made of people from all over the place with the entire spectrum of opinions.

Yes, I’m absolutely certain there are people of other races and ethnicities who have opinions I disagree with, sure. Even on this particular issue. I can’t imagine anyone with more than two brain cells trying to argue otherwise.

1) The only people I’ve specifically seen trying to justify and defend the shooting of this kid have been white. Yes, I’m sure there are black people who believe it was justified too. But should I rephrase my statement to include hypothetical people I haven’t actually come across yet? Especially when doing so would suggest that this is an opinion shared equally across different racial groups? (It’s not.)

2) Race matters. Maybe not biologically; maybe it’s only because we make it matter. But pretending it doesn’t, in our current historical/cultural context, is a harmful choice. In this case, I see a difference between someone who’s white trying to defend the shooting and someone who’s not.

Someone who’s black grows up in this country knowing perfectly well that he or she could be next, that Martin’s shooting is not an isolated, one-time event. White people have the luxury of ignoring that, of pretending that this is just a random tragedy — a horrible event, but not something that connects in any way to a larger systemic problem.

You’re right. I specified the white ones in my message. I stand by that. You’re certainly welcome to your opinion as to whether or not my statement is a racist one.

ChrisMar 28, 2012 @ 11:34:45

“In this case, I see a difference between someone who’s white trying to defend the shooting and someone who’s not.”

If your only differentiation is skin color, I’m not sure what else to call it. What would you call it?

If you believe the only difference is skin color, then I would suggest taking a much closer look at how our society treats people of different races, and the experiences of those with different skin colors.

ChrisMar 28, 2012 @ 11:58:45

It’s not my belief but it was the only differentiation that you made.

I’m trying to help point out why your statement was so inflammatory and kind of playing devil’s advocate here.

Clearly “white” means more to you than skin color but in the context of 132 characters, it’s just skin color that comes across.

GalenaMar 28, 2012 @ 12:05:42

His statement isn’t racist because he’s calling out the white people who are being racist–and he’s NOT saying that all white people are racist and defending Zimerman. His comment is ONLY addressed to the people who ARE defending him. And yes, there is a difference between white people defending the shooter and people of other races defending the shooter (none of which I’ve seen so far, to be honest)–the white people are coming from a place of race privilege and ignorance of the life of fear (of racism and retaliation) that black people have to endure. Crying out “oh, you can’t talk about white people like that, that’s racist too!” comes across as an attempt to ignore the point of the statement (which is valid and not racist, sorry to say) and negate his point. Someone calling out racists doesn’t make that person a racist too.

redfredMar 28, 2012 @ 22:32:19

I am going to preface this with i think Zimmerman acted poorly and should be held responsible.

The problem is this should not be about race at all. It should be about a crime. What makes me angry is this country is no longer innocent until proven guilty. We all, me included, have already found Zimmerman guilty. We have based our decision on leaked information, heresy, reports from people who were not there and a 911 call the experts are still trying to figure out. What i am getting at is none of us were there. Black Panthers have offered a 10k reward for Zimmermans “capture”…i am sure we can read between the line on that one…isn’t that racism. If we found a video tomorrow clearing Zimmerman of a crime everyone in this country who has already judged should feel ashamed. I am just using this case but think about all the cases on the news we decide before we get the facts. This one is worse because race is involved. If this was two white kids or two black kids would we have already found the shooter guilty.

Also Zimmermans friend defending him on the news all week is black, so you have seen a black man justifying it.

All that being said your right Zimmerman’s actions are unjustifiable and he should fry…guilty or innocent.

This is not an attack at you Jim or your article (if you feel it is i apologize), i just hope this is a wake up call to keep an open mind about issues one does not have all the facts about. This should be free of race and prejudices within the scope of the investigation. One should receive a fair trial.

I am guilty about everything i just complained about…perhaps we can teach our children more tolerance…

I’d suggest reading N. K. Jemisin’s comment here. I’d suggest the blog post and the rest of the discussion in the comments as well, but that one directly addresses the question of why this is about race.

As a straight, white, cisgendered male, I can’t speak authoratively on the experience of … well, any other group. My experience growing up leads to certain assumptions about the way the world works. Unless I explicitly challenge them, I won’t realize they are there – but they will impact the way I percieve the world.

Here’s a test: Ask the folks in your office when they last checked under the car at night before getting in. Specifically, checked for an assailant.

In my experience – culled from informal polls of college undergrads – most (90%+) males don’t ever check. Most (~75%+) females always do. It typically startles both groups how different their experience is… but it fundamentally changes the way they look at the world.

So is your opinion – or mine – based on the color of our skin? Not really. But our experiences – whether we like it or not – are impacted by skin color, gender, etc, and that in turn colors the way we interpret the world.

(Because this is an author’s blog, and the topic has come up here before, let me short-circuit it: my attempts at writing characters of other groups than myself seem to have been moderately successful; that’s a different topic entirely, and largely based on doing research and getting feedback from beta readers who pointed out the flaws ahead of time.)

Heh. I think we posted essentially the same point at almost the same time…

For writers, I think it’s *vital* to recognize our own assumptions and experiences, and to start to look beyond them. We’ll never truly or completely understand what it’s like to grow up and live as someone from another demographic, but if we pay attention and listen and try, we can at least start to understand better.

In a moderator or blog-owner capacity, I like to respond to obvious trolling or flames with a very corporate-sounding “Thank you for taking the time to respond. We value your input and will take it under consideration. Have a nice day!” And then I block them.

Mark WallaceMar 28, 2012 @ 10:42:26

Excellent points. I went back and hit the “+1″ button when I read “Everything begins with stance and breathing”. I commend you for sanity, and for improving the reputation of martial artists and thoughtful people everywhere.

I’d add my favorite line from Sifu. Loosely paraphrased, he says it is more important to be able to recover than it is to hit. Very few conflicts are decided by a single interaction/blow. (yeah, we all train for that myth, but it ain’t reality). The winner (pretty much no matter how you measure “win”) is the guy who can recover his balance/stance/breathing faster/more effectively than the other guy.

I remember asking about the idea of taking someone out with one strike, and getting a similar answer: that’s the goal, but as we’re training, we also recognize the reality that except for the occasional fluke, it ain’t gonna happen.

This is so applicable when it comes to responding to book reviews, too. I’ve had two negative reviews on my book: one was right and it was easy to let go of. (I actually did respond to it, because she’d asked a question to which I knew the answer, but it didn’t have any emotional weight to it for me. I was fine with that review.) The other one has…errors. And it is REALLY hard to walk away from a review of your book when the reviewer…makes mistakes. (Okay, I admit, I wanted to say flat-out lies, but I’m trying hard to let go of it.) I never really thought that negative reviews would bother me, because people have different tastes in books and there’s nothing wrong with that and I am not so arrogant as to believe that anything I do is perfect. But walking away is a lot harder than I expected it to be. I think following your advice and recognizing that not everything is worth my time and energy is a great idea, though. I’ll be working on that one!

Oh, yeah. If you just didn’t like my book, that’s one thing. No book will work for everyone, and I can handle people having different opinions. But getting things factually wrong is a lot harder to walk away from.

If it’s a major, professional-type review place with a big audience, I might contact them to address the factual error and ask if they’d be willing to correct it. In part this is because I trust someplace like say Publishers Weekly to respond professionally in kind.

For a smaller, personal-type review, it probably wouldn’t be worth it to me, given both their potential audience and the potential pain/fallout I could have to deal with. But walking away is still awfully hard…

I actually struggle with this quite a bit, as my ex (from a particularly traumatic and abusive relationship) is still where he can interact with me. It’s *hard* to walk away when I see statements that are meant to provoke me. And yet, like you, I’ve learned that I simply don’t have the energy to fight that fight every.single.time.

Thanks. Sometimes I feel like a coward for picking my fights – you reminded me that it’s just smart.

blackcoatMar 28, 2012 @ 12:35:54

“When strong, avoid them. If of high morale, depress them. Seem humble to fill them with conceit. If at ease, exhaust them. If united, separate them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.”
― Sun Tzu

And, while some people you really aren’t going to convince, it’s sometimes useful to other people watching the exchange to see valid responses. You may know in advance that you won’t convince the original poster, but you may still tip three people sitting on the fence off onto your side.

Yep, and I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind. I also suspect you’ll be more persuasive to onlookers if you make your point and move on as opposed to if you let yourself be drawn into the flailing-Muppet style of online fighting.

“If the only reason to engage is to soothe my injured ego, then I need to walk away.”

This was golden advice that I needed to hear at exactly this moment. An incident occured at work today and I really wanted to throw a hissy fit or slam a few doors. But after breathing a while I realize that the major issue is that my ego was hurt and that the other person had their reasons so I’ll be walking away now and letting it go. Thank you Jim.

“For writers, I think it’s *vital* to recognize our own assumptions and experiences, and to start to look beyond them. We’ll never truly or completely understand what it’s like to grow up and live as someone from another demographic, but if we pay attention and listen and try, we can at least start to understand better.”

Loved this too. And I think that goes for all of us, not just writers. Recognizing that others have had different life-shaping experiences than we have is the first step to understanding. And to make a blatant generalization, I think a lot of white people do not realize (or even think about) what it is like to grow up as a person of color.

I enjoy your zen-like attitude to the whole situation of annoying internet trolls. I feel that a link to this should be in every single sentient being’s internet toolbox. “Hate on me? I just Hines’d you and we’re done.”

However my main point is that you should absolutely not work on your trash talking as it is the pinnacle of trash talking ever. Pirate lingo and goblin farts should coexist as much as possible. “Highly kickable ass” is going into my everyday repertoire along with “By the FSM’s meaty balls.”

Great post, Jim. So often, we respond when we should just walk away and let it go. Very little happiness comes from any angry confrontation online. But when you must respond, I love the bit about controlling the pace of the battle. No need to rush out a response when you’re too agitated to write well.

Most of it good stuff, but wasn’t it the hobbit who actually pwned the witch-king of Angmar? Boils down to, how much fun are you having with the losers out there. (Loser, by my definition here is anyone who disagrees with me, or in your case you.) That’s the neat thing about the internet, you can usually choose who to fight with and when it stops. In the real world you don’t always get the choice….